Tortured Tides
by Omniskriba
Summary: Jyou finally finds his place in the world but faces the question whether or not he does belong there.


Tortured Tides

By Kyoko Jyou

Disclaimer: I do not claim to own Digimon. It is the licensed trademark of Toei Animation, Bandai and Fox Kids Entertainment.

Author's Note: This may very well be the last fanfic I would be writing as I've very well lost the momentum. I will not, however, retire without bringing my career to a close with a bang and this fic would be it. I plan to cmprise all of the concepts of all my unfinished projects into this fic. I hope you will enjoy this.

Please review.

A cold bead of sweat traced its way across Dr. Kido's forehead, his hair wet and tossled and his eyes blinking nervously. The violent beating of his heart seemed to bring him into a terrible sense of isolation even if he was then surrounded by his nurses and junior surgeons.

Still, he steadily held the thin metal scalpel on his right hand, guiding it ever so gently across his wife's tender, blood-stained flesh. The bright light of the operating lamp bathed her organs in a bleak, ethereal glow.

Nonetheless, her vital signs were rapidly waning. The child she bore, too, was hanging in the balance between life and death, his fate tottering in uncertainty.

Still, Mrs Kido's illness was a complete and utter mystery- the poor doctor had no idea what could be gnawing at the thread of his beloved spouse's wife. Her skin was already dead pale and the anaesthesia had rendered her into a lifeless vegetable.

The minutes dragged on like hours and hours like long, painstaking days.

Dr. Kido's body was, itself, in the brink of exhaustion.

Then… suddenly…

"Dr. Kido… the patient's vital signs have dropped! It's… It's… gone…"

That was when everything went dark…

Episode One: Genesis Black

Jyou breathed heavily. He clenched his shirtless chest by it's fine blue hairs, trying to ease the strain on his lungs. He tried to control his fidgeting – Mimi was sleeping contently beside him, naked as well under the the soft chinese silk sheets. He was alright now, he thought. The nightmare has past and he was back on his condo unit with his girlfriend of three years.

Reaching onto the red oak credenza by his bedside, he picked up his finely framed spectacles and placed it over his sleepy eyes and peered into the alarm clock-radio's red LCD screen.

4:14 AM.

A little too early to get up, he thought. He had a class at about 7:30 to get to and his students aren't going to find it any easier to recoognize him as a professor if he was to be late.

Anyway, there was no use getting back to bed. Mimi does like having the bed to herself on those torrid 'mornings after'. He might as well eat breakfast. Putting on a blue nightgown, he left Mimi's side.

As much as he liked it, there were obvious downsides to being a medical prodigy, especially if you've been taken in by Tokyo's prestigious Toudai University as a Professor of Neurosurgery. Then again, Japanese Hospitals had no room for 19 year-old surgeons and preferred more experienced MD's with resumés more than a couple of pages long. Alas, the teaching profession was the best thing they offered… even if it meant that he was teaching students several years older than he was.

Moving silently through his condo's narrow halls, he noticed a light coming from the kitchen.

Apparently, it was either he forgot to turn off the lights… or someone was there…

And he happened to know that the lights in his condo turn off by themselves the moment he locks the doors of his bedroom…

Pulling a revolver hidden in a nearby end table, he trodded on carefully, pulling out the gun as he entered the kitchen, the smell of frying bacon waffling in the air.

It was Yamato.

"Oh hey there, Jyou! Easy with the gun! It was too late to go home from the concert last night so you let me crash here for the night, remember?"

Jyou suddenly felt very stupid at the moment, hurriedly tossing his gun somewhere. "Oh… sorry."

"Don't worry. Oh yeah, here… I cooked breakfast! I made pancakes, bacon, eggs, english muffins, low-fat fettuccini alfredo for Mimi and I made you that new protein-and-fruit shake I've been telling you about."

Jyou looked at Yamato, mildly perplexed at the rock star in front of him, currently wearing his blue apron. "You've… you've cooked up a storm!"

"Yeah… under 60 minutes too."

"You really did'nt…"

"Don't mention it. I love cooking. Besides, you have all these expensive cooking gadgets hanging around your house and you hardly even use them. Tell you what, you come to one of my concerts for once and we can call it even."

"Fine… I've been looking for something to do with Mimi this weekend."

"Oh-ho, planning on proposing, are we?"

"N…No! Well…. Not yet anyway…"

"Don't tell me you're chickening out again! Goodness, Jyou. Look at you! You're a class act with a medical career. If you can find anything to be insecure about within those lines, give me a call and I'll sell your brain and body to the Salvation Army, you got me?"

Jyou smirked. Slightly. "You know, I'm still a nerd."

"Well, you won't find me beating up seven-foot-tall nerds, do you?"

He looked up at Jyou who looked down right back at him.

"I'm only 6'7" He grinned.

"I'm almost a foot shorter, I don't have a problem with that." It was then that the two broke into a slight chuckle. "No, honestly Jyou. Why not pop the question already. I mean, you have sex with the girl almost every night… and you used to disapprove of pre-marital sex."

"I don't know… I… I just don't feel ready, that's all."

"And I suppose you aren't at all physically attracted to America's hottest new model?"

"Okay… so I am. But sex isn't the only thing to marriage, right?"

"Well…"

"RIGHT?"

"Yeah… I guess you also have to love the person and crap like that. But you do love Mimi, right?"

"Of course I do!"

"So pop the question already!"

"I can't… I mean I… uh… oh, we're not having this conversation!"

"Suit yourself. But remember, don't tie the knot and all that chastity crap about not nailing other girls who'd die to have you goes down the drain."

"Oh just shut up!"

"Wha'd I say?"

Jyou sighed as he took a stool by the sleek bar that divided the kitchen from the dining area.

"You're lucky, you know that. You've always been the cool guy in the group and you've never had any trouble getting into relationships since you already know they want you."

"Hey, that's not entirely true, y'know. Being popular makes it even harder to find out if a person actually likes you. Sometimes you'd think they're just after something."

"Like your looks?"

"Yeah. That and my brooding."

"They love that, don't they?"

"Yeah."

"As I said, its so much easier getting into relationships as a sex object."

"Am I sensing an air of low self esteem issues again?"

"Nah…"

"Jyou, between Tai's workout regimen and my makeover, I never thought the lack of even a mildly-inflated ego was out of order."

"All you did was cut out the sleeves off half of my shirts and toss my electric iron out the window so I can't press my clothes anymore. And I was sixteen then. I had to buy a new wardrobe the moment I had that freak growth spurt. And you had to cut the sleeves off that batch too!"

"At least you don't look preppy anymore… except for the dorky glasses. You're still not getting contacts, are you?"

"Not a chance."

"You do know, Jyou, you'd qualify as a dumb jock if you weren't so smart. Do you even have any idea how many women wanted to meet you after that interview you had for 'Good Morning Odaiba'?"

"Eh?"

"They were mostly older college students, I hear. Read college magazines once in a while and you'd understand."

"I was in a magazine?"

"You. And some hollywood teen actor. I think the article was entitled "Perfect Leads for Scripted Sexual Fantasies."

"Shut up, Yamato."

"I'm not making this up!"

Jyou smiled.

"Jyou, it's over. You won. Tai and I, we can only dream of this kind of success."

"You're a rock star."

"But you ended up with Mimi. I'm not going to deny this, Jyou. I loved her. I still do, in fact. But I could see how much you make her happy. I don't think I could manage that kind of contentment out of anybody, really. How big did Sora say you we're again?"

"Yama!"

"nine and three quarters?"

"How'd… hey!"

"What can I say, Mimi's a proud girl."

"She's been talking to her about that?"

"They talk about everything. With Miyako of course. And Catherine in the internet. It's posted on you fansite, too."

"That wasn't funny Yama."

"I dunno, I was laughing pretty hard."

"Yama!"

Jyou sipped from his shake.

"But seriously, Jyou."

"What?"

"Nine and three quarters?"

"Huh?"

"I know you're supposed to be huge and all but nine and three quarters?"

"Eleven"

"What?"

"I'm still growing, okay?" Jyou blushed profusely.

"You're a freak, Jyou."

"Yeah…"


End file.
